updated 02:00 pm EDT, Fri June 8, 2007

Roz Ho leaves MacBU

Leading up to the shipment of Office 2008 for Mac OS X later this year, Microsoft has announced a major management change at the Mac BU, with longtime General Manager Roz Ho being replaced by Craig Eisler. Ho will move to Robbie Bach's Entertainment and Devices Division, which is responsible for the Xbox and Zune product lines. Craig Eisler (whose blog is here) was formerly general manager of the Windows Media Platform Group at Microsoft, the "father" of DirectX and later worked at Redmond based wireless software company, Action Engine.

In a statement shared by Tom Gibbons, corporate vice president, he welcomed Craig, commenting that, "with Craig's deep background in technology and product development, his demonstrated business leadership, and his respect for Apple, I have every confidence that he will continue to drive a productive relationship with Apple and carry on the Macintosh Business Unit's tradition of delivering outstanding native Mac productivity software."

In a post to Microsoft MacMojo blog, Craig says "Why Mac BU? What first got my attention was the fact that it was a fantastic business focused on delivering great technology. As an Office for Mac user, I already knew we had a terrific set of products, and as I dug in, I discovered there was a terrific team of passionate people dedicated to innovation and excellence. Furthermore, Apple and Microsoft are great partners (have been for over 20 years), and there is still more we and Apple can do together. When I put all of that stuff together, it presented a very compelling opportunity. But the icing on the cake - the thing that I love - is the chance to work on Mac products and to get to work with Apple. I have been an Apple fan and Mac user for years - check out my recent blog posting: top ten things from Apple I love."

Eisler is the fourth GM since the formation of the MacBU 10 years ago, following Ben Waldheim, Kevin Browne and Roz Ho.

Innovative?

"I discovered there was a terrific team of passionate people dedicated to innovation and excellence"

uh, yeah, right.

However, Eisler is awesome. I think many of those "passionate people dedicated to innovation and excellence" will be getting the boot soon, and we may see some actual innovation with actual MAC programmers working on actual MAC products.